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SOCIALIST MEP: EU PROTECTING HUNGARIANS' INTERESTS AGAINST GOVT

 

The European Commission has demonstrated that it can act in cooperation with EU member states against the government of a country to protect the interests of that country’s citizens from their government, opposition Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi said on Tuesday. Ujhelyi told an online press conference in Strasbourg that “notwithstanding the best efforts of the [Hungarian] propaganda machine, it is hard to present Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s retreat as a triumph when he has also been issued with an official document showing that [his government] violated the rule of law and abused EU resources.” It is the first time in EU history that it is officially stated that a member state government severely violated the rule of law and consequently a part of its EU funding has been frozen, he said. “If ruling Fidesz does not implement the amendments to scale back its System of National Cooperation (NER) as promised, then Hungary could lose the 8,000 billion forints which is now frozen, including 4,800 billion euros non-refundable support, for good”, he said.